Yellowjackets is a rare show in today’s TV landscape. Many series have tried to revert to a more positive outlook on life, especially as so much darkness pervades our society. This survival series harkens back to the age of the antihero, though. The girls who live in the forest after their plane crashes on the way to a national soccer tournament have a deep torment tucked away inside their souls. Trauma and insane circumstances often provide the push these ladies need to go off the deep end, both in the timeline showing their teen years and the one in the present day as middle-aged women.
The third season of Yellowjackets has peeled back even more layers on the characters. As the season rounds the corner and gets closer to the finish line, it feels fitting to rank the characters by how extreme they are. From murder to blackmail and even self-sabotage, these are the actions of truly unwell people.
7. Kodiak
We don’t know much about Kodiak yet. He was just introduced in season 3, episode 7, as a forest guide for a couple of frog scientists. When the trio runs into the Yellowjackets during one of their cannibalistic rituals, Kodiak must run for his life. He’s spared by Travis and Akilah at the end of the episode, and now he claims he can lead the entire team to a rescue point and eventually back home. Kodiak’s nature skills and instincts are certainly going to be put to the test if he wants to escape the wilderness with the girls.
Kodiak is seen in his brief time on screen as a hunter with a crossbow and a fearless desire to traverse nature. While he hasn’t done anything psychotic yet, Joel McHale’s performance embeds the character with a thirst for violence and a vibe that he’s willing to kill anyone to get out alive.
6. Melissa
Melissa is shown to be living a fairly normal life in the adult timeline in season 3, episode 8, but she makes this list for her actions in the past. Teen Melissa has already shown how easily manipulated she is. Melissa serves as Shauna’s bisexual awakening, and Melissa symbolizes Shauna’s psychosis more than anything. When Shauna wants to execute Coach Scott with hardly any evidence to back up her claims, Melissa blindly follows Shauna’s directions without any thought given to the consequences. Love truly is blind, they say, and it makes Melissa violent and willing to kill for her new girlfriend.
5. Van Palmer
Van is one of the saddest characters on the show. She starts out as the tomboy comic relief that all of the girls need after crashing in the forest. After getting clawed to near-death by wild animals and influenced by Lottie’s crazy theories, Van sheds her innocence and becomes violent. Van openly engages in cannibalism and lets her paranoia get the best of her, leading to a reckless group-think philosophy while trying to escape the forest and even after she rejoins her teammates in the present timeline.
4. Misty Quigley
If you were to ask the other Yellowjackets who the most extreme person on the team is, they’d certainly pick Misty. I don’t completely agree as most of Misty’s actions are more indicative of someone who has an addiction to attention and being liked. Unlike others on the team, Misty doesn’t have a thirst for violence just for violence’s sake. Her psychosis revolves around having no friends and manipulating others to get what she wants. Misty’s decision to destroy the emergency transmitter in the first season that could have saved her teammates so that she could be the hero is one of the craziest things she did, but it’s understandable from the angle that she felt more alive out in the forest than in civilization. Much like Daryl in The Walking Dead, Misty was meant for a post-apocalyptic life.
3. Lottie Matthews
Lottie is nuts. Let’s not mince any words here. This girl turned her teammates into a bunch of crazy wilderness cultists, often encouraging the others to kill and sacrifice their morality for the sake of returning home. Even after the team gets back to Jersey, Lottie starts a wellness compound that teaches many of the same lessons to her disciples that she used out in the forest. She’s responsible for the deaths of so many people, including Natalie in the present timeline and the murder of Edwin in the past timeline.
2. Taissa Turner
Taissa is so high on the list because she continues to feed her darkest instincts as an adult more than almost any other character in the show. While a lot of the violence that Taissa displays comes when she’s in a fugue state, there are plenty of examples of Tai’s bloodthirsty nature when she’s sane, too. Her willingness to execute Coach Scott in the past and her lack of empathy for the waiter she indirectly kills at the beginning of season 3’s adult timeline seal her claim to the throne as the second-most dangerous person in the show.
1. Shauna Sadecki
Shauna is not only the most complex character in the show but also the most evil. There is no excuse for her cold, unempathetic nature. Shauna is a horrible mother in the current timeline while trying to pretend she can outrun her past. Her vindictiveness in the forest towards her teammates and Coach Scott makes her utterly nasty. Shauna is influenced by her jealousy and love towards her dead best friend, Jackie, whom she eats and then keeps her ear as a souvenir/trophy after the feast. Shauna should have never come back from the wilderness; she’s not fit for human interaction.
